A US based Hindu religious leader has urged teams competing for Google Lunar Xprize to carry Rig-Veda, world's oldest religious text in continued use, to the moon.

Distinguished Hindu statesman
Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that sacred
Rig-Veda, a
revealed text of divine origin, was a universal treasure and it was
highly important to preserve it on the surface of the moon.

In
Focus

Rajan Zed, who is President of
Universal Society of Hinduism, pointed out that Rig-Veda
transmitted eternal
truth and was a storehouse of sacred knowledge covering a wide
variety of topics like society, environment, nature of cosmos,
mantric power, origins of the world, prayer, death, creation, etc.

In order to win Google Lunar Xprize,
claimed to be the largest international incentive based prize of all
time, “a private company must land safely on the surface of the
Moon, travel 500 meters above, below, or on the Lunar surface, and
send back two ‘Mooncasts’ to Earth".

Thirty-three teams are competing,
including two from India - Synergy Moon and Team Indus. Filmmaker
James Cameron, director of highest grossing Avatar, has endorsed it.
Total prizes amount to $30 million, including the grand prize of $20
million.

A Bible was reportedly left behind on
the lunar rover at moon’s surface during Apollo 15 mission in 1971
and efforts are being made to take Torah to the moon.